Hartford's Places Of Faith Serve Vital Role

DENNIS BARONE

Places of faith nourish Hartford's communities

"City dwellers of all races, languages, traditions and social classes find in communities of faith a sense of place." So writes Katie Day in her recent book "Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street," a study of the scores of religious congregations on a single street in Philadelphia. But, she observes, "despite the many ways in which congregations are providing a whole range of services, these communities of faith in cities are invisible to urban planners, developers and politicians."

Until, that is, something goes horribly wrong, such as when a devoted pastor suffers gunshot wounds while placing American flags outside his church on Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend. The Rev. Augustus Sealy and Hartford First Church of the Nazarene proclaim theirs "the church at the heart of the city: with the city at heart." Among the aims of their practice are to "reach out to a community that needs God's grace," to "open the doors of our hearts and facilities to a hurting world," and to "share what God has given us with those less fortunate."

They aren't alone; the small and struggling city of Hartford has many such places. In faith, perhaps, the city is rich, and that, no doubt, would make its founder, the Rev. Thomas Hooker, proud.

Consider just one street of approximately two miles. Go a little way up Capitol Avenue from the Nazarene Church and head south on Broad Street. Along the route there are about a dozen places of faith, reaching from Ebenezer Holy Temple (fronting Russ Street) to St. George Armenian Church at Broad and White streets. Ebenezer Holy Temple uses a stately edifice from 1900 that for about a century St. Wladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Church called home.

Around the corner from the Ebenezer Church, back on Capitol Avenue, Emanuel Lutheran Church, founded by Swedish immigrants in 1889, still goes strong. At the opposite end of Broad Street the Armenian church houses an Armenian school that offers all important language classes as well as cooking and cultural ones.

Approximately mid-street on Broad, the Rev. Julie Ramirez has made excellent adaptive reuse of a grand former Catholic structure for the Templo Fe Asamblea De Dios. And across the street another female pastor, Betty Quinone, serves the Iglesia De Dios, a storefront church.

Day has written that "storefront congregations in particular may be seen as signs of blight rather than resources for neighborhoods at risk." But don't judge a faith community by the facade of its building. For example, the Christian Fellowship Independent Church led by the Rev. Dr. Vincent Etwaroo occupies part of a former commercial or small industrial structure that also provides a home to two other congregations: the Iglesia Pentecostal Tesalonica and the Congregacion Cristiana El Nuevo Pacto.

Elsewhere on the street, a former industrial structure houses a community health center as well as the Iglesia Alianza Misionera and the F.A.I.T.H. Ministries Church. The latter greets one with the words "Come & Be Blessed" and offers "Free Access into Heaven." Most of these storefront churches offer Bible study on Wednesday nights and worship service Sunday mornings.

At the Christian Fellowship Independent Church a large white cross above double doors marks the entrance. Inside, light wood sets off an elevated platform and bright flowers in a vase stand next to a lectern of the same handsome wood. It is a simple, but very attractive and pleasing sacred space; a space made sacred, reconstructed as such. Their website announces: "We invite all people …." Yes, most of these faith communities have websites and some of their pastors can be seen and heard preaching on YouTube.

What is the impact of a congregation's presence in an actual as opposed to virtual neighborhood? "Undeniably," Day has said, "communities of faith contribute to the social well-being of individuals, neighborhoods, and cities in ways that should be identified and publicly appreciated. … Pound for pound, their contributions are indeed significant." As one would expect, these houses of faith offer religious services and study of religious texts, but as one might forget they also offer social services, youth programs and simply a place to gather and meet and share the company and joy of being with others even in — or especially in — times of struggle and adversity.

Dennis Barone is a professor of English and American studies at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford and is the editor of "Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776" (Wesleyan University Press).